


I Will Do You No Wrong

by absurdiist (workthewentz)



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguing, Cyberpunk Typical Violence, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fix-It, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda?, Minor Character Death, Slow Build, Soft Johnny Silverhand, we're gonna put them through the wringer to get there though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28445628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/workthewentz/pseuds/absurdiist
Summary: "Finally he looks at her. His eyes soften. “Hey there, Samurai.” His voice is rough from disuse, scratchy, but it’s solid and he’s there and suddenly everything that she’s done, every single thing she’s been through in the last months, seems worth it. She has him. And they can go home."In which Johnny regains his body (with some modifications), V's still on a bit of a time crunch (and in denial about it), and they uncover a small conspiracy along the way (did I say small?).
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 20
Kudos: 229





	1. The Taste of Victory

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicating this, once again, to the Silversluts who helped me brainstorm and flesh this out. 
> 
> I'm estimating we're gonna do roughly four chapters of this, but these two idiots have taken over my brain, so who really knows? I'll be adding more tags as needed, so make sure to always check back. (Note: Just so readers aren't confused, I made Konpeki and Saka Tower the same place. I didn't feel like having V run all over town, sorry 'bout it.)
> 
> As always, if you feel so inclined, gimme that good ol' English class crit. ;)
> 
> Let's get started!

She always thought she would dread this.

As V jacks into Mikoshi, lowering her body into the coolant below, she searches her innermost self. She looks for pain, looks for trepidation, looks for terror – and finds nothing. Nothing but cold resolve, hard as steel.

And as she drifts, as her mind gathers itself and prepares for her return to cyberspace, she wonders if this is how Johnny feels; if he, somehow, finds peace in the construct. If he finds it easier than existing out in the world, where there are expectations and the need to survive. She thinks it might not be so bad, if this doesn’t work out. Even if the end seems boring, the endless nothingness of code is peaceful, and she almost resigns herself to it.

That is, until, she is offered an alternative.

Alt, midway through persuading V to join her in the Blackwall, cuts her speech short and cocks her head. V knows better than to interrupt; while Alt is a pain in the ass, she also holds both their fates in the lilting indifference of her voice. She glances at Johnny and he gazes back at her, shrugging. He has already accepted his fate, a feeling with which she prays he will forgive her for empathizing.

Alt breaks her unnerving pause, reanimating to inform both of them that there is something they should hear. A crackle of static and they’re listening to someone speak in hushed, hurried tones that echo around the halls of the construct.

_“I believe this is the best option, brother.”_

_“Hanako. What shame do you expect this family to endure? Arasaka Tower has been brought to its knees once already.”_

_“I wish only to prevent further loss of life.”_

_“If you do this, the devastation will prove irreversible. Night City will never recover, and neither will the Arasaka corporation. Our greatest project yet resides in the penthouse still.”_

_“What_ project _?”_

_“The Relic. I am sure you know of such a venture. Arasaka scientists have been learning from it, enhancing it. So that we might insert it back into its host.”_

A long pause. _“I will mull it over. I will contact you when I have made my decision.”_

V stands abruptly, and if the construct understood her urgency it might topple her chair; as it is, she simply phases through it, the code unaffected.

Even Johnny is alarmed, his sunglasses glitching off of his face. He looks up at Alt, neither of them daring to speak. It is something neither of them have considered, but now that there is a possibility of Johnny regaining control over his own body – _his_ – they are filled with new hope.

Alt pauses once more, simply looks between the two of them. V thinks that she detects disappointment in the way Alt refuses to meet her eyes.

“If you take this path, you will still die.”

V glances at Johnny. “It’s not just about me anymore. It never has been.”

Before V enters the mortal well, Johnny takes her by the arm and pulls her close. He knows Alt can listen, the closest thing to all-seeing he’s ever experienced in his life, but this moment is for the two of them.

“You don’t have to do this, V.”

She scoffs at him. “Like hell I don’t.” Her fingers come up of their own volition to trace the outline of the dog tags that hang from her neck, the promise behind them so important, so carved into her, that her mind chose to bring them with her into the construct. “You made me a promise. And now I’m making one to you. I will get you your life back,” she swears. And Johnny believes her. Believes every word – and it fills him with fear.

“Listen to me,” he says, and she does. He tightens his grip on her arm and leans in, resting his head against her shoulder. It feels cold, surreal, like it does when he wraps himself around her in bed or pulls her out of the line of enemy fire. This is the last time it will feel this way. “There was never any–any point to this, before. To you and me. Not if I was dyin’ anyway. But if I’m not, then you’re not either. You come back to me.” V nods, and he releases her.

She falls into the well, and the blackness returns.

When she awakens, she’s covered in coolant. It clings uncomfortably to her hair and clothes, and she rights herself and trudges out of it, annoyed. She reloads her weapons slowly, checks herself over and injects a bounceback, unsure of what she’ll be facing once she reaches the higher levels of the tower. Something feels amiss, bereft, but she isn’t quite sure of the feeling’s source.

It isn’t just the lower levels that Alt seems to have commandeered. When V enters the elevator, the lights are still bathed in red. As she ascends, she hears a lone alarm droning softly from behind the doors, but no agents rush to attack her. No one seems alerted to her presence. She breathes in the thickening air; the silence is almost awkward. She finally realizes that it’s because Johnny is no longer with her, a presence she could not only hear but _feel_ , as if she was slightly less alone for having him inside her _._ The corners of her mouth turn down.

Finally the doors open at the penthouse level and she steps onto the floor. She takes a deep breath, chasing off flashes of the last time she was here. Adam Smasher and his powerful, frightening mechanized form. Yorinobu Arasaka and the frenzied look in his eyes as he murders his father. Jackie panicking beside her, just trying to finish the job and get them both out alive. The images keep coming even as she mentally fights them off, now: the fall from the penthouse, Jackie’s blood, Arasaka agents surrounding her. Cursing herself as she fights.

She squeezes her eyes shut and moves forward, and when she is able to refocus she is standing in the middle of the room, a shadow moving closer and closer to her. Something glitches, and the shadow pixelates to reveal a face she hoped she would never have to see again.

“It is nice to finally meet you,” Yorinobu Arasaka says, brandishing a gold-plated revolver – aimed directly at her temple. His eyes flit around the room, anxious. His hands are shaking.

“Can’t say the same,” V says. With a discreet twitch, her Kiroshi implants move into scan mode and she quickly inspects the room around her. There are no other guards, no backup; no one but Yorinobu. She guesses that Smasher may have been here, before coming to kill her. Another of his missions failed. She almost wishes she could have taunted him for that before putting a bullet through his skull.

And she voices this to the blaspheming heir, voice light. “Who are you looking for, Yorinobu? Your bodyguard’s dead.” He falters, and she takes the opening to pull her own weapon, River’s beautiful revolver that almost glimmers as she wields it. She fires at his hand, the bullet whizzing by her target and causing his gun to slip through his fingers and clatter to the floor. She moves in on him with wide, careful steps, and he backs up until he is against the wall. “On your knees,” she commands.

Yorinobu stares back at her, indignant. “Do you know who I am?”

She snorts. Even facing down the barrel of a gun, Arasaka doesn’t know how to abandon their entitlement. “A pissbaby whose sister wants him dead. On. Your. Knees.”

“How do you–“ She cuts him off with a swift kick to his right leg, causing him to yelp in pain as he falls.

“That’s better. Now,” she lets her next words come carefully, rattling around in her mouth along with the taste of victory. “Tell me where to find Johnny Silverhand.” It is not a request.

He glares up at her, clutching his leg, and laughs cruelly. “So it is you. The mercenary who stole the Relic. You’ve caused quite a bit of chaos. Tell me, what’s it like having a terrorist take over your mind?”

She shifts the gun in her hand, clutching the grip and brings it down hard, catching his cheekbone and opening a wide gash across his face. He falls back against the wall and his head collides with the marble with a crash. His hands come up to cup his cheek, coming away bloody. She can find no sympathy for him. “Where is the Relic’s intended host.”

He says nothing, stares into the middle distance, looking betrayed. She has had enough, and she is running out of time. Almost of its own volition, her arm lowers. Her finger pulls the trigger. Yorinobu’s kneecap explodes with a sickening lurch in a mess of blood and sinew.

No longer able to stay quiet, he lets out a horrifying scream, then grits his teeth as he topples face first onto the floor. The blood from his knee and his face combine and pool around him as he whimpers, breathing heavily, face dripping with sweat. V gets to her knees, leaning into his space to whisper, “I asked you a question.”

“Congratulations,” he breathes. “You have made an enemy of Arasaka.”

“I’ve been an enemy of Arasaka for months now. I think I can handle one more strike on my record.”

“My sister will hunt you.”

V slowly cocks her head. Yorinobu is immature, volatile even. But he’s not stupid. “Hanako would be happy about this, actually. Fuck, she even offered me the gig. But you knew that, didn’t you? Which is why you’re hiding. If your sister knew you were here, she would have blown this tower to the ground by now.”

Yorinobu coughs once, and it turns into violent hacking that wracks his body. V stares down at him, trying to reconcile this crawling, blubbering mess of a man with the one who asphyxiated his father, who has been commanding the hunt for her and Takemura for months. “Fuck it,” she says in a low, dangerous voice. “I don’t have time for this. I’ll find it myself. Tear this room apart if I have to.” She aims the revolver at his head, preparing for the recoil.

Yorinobu manages to look at her out of the corner of his eye, blood crowding his vision. He hears something in her voice; determination, bloodthirst, maybe, and for the first time he truly fears her. “There is a switch.” She crouches beside him, pressing the barrel into the back of his head; a threat, a promise. “Inside the pillar. Flip it, and the safe will open.”

She leans in once more, feels something break inside of her. “Thank you for your honesty,” she says, and pulls the trigger. The contents of Yorinobu Arasaka’s brain spill across the penthouse floor. His body spasms before falling lifeless, and she wills herself not to look down at it. She’s come this far; it’s time to bring Johnny back.

Stepping into the wide pillar that housed her, Jackie, and the Relic while they hid from Yorinobu and his father – and by extension, Goro and Adam Smasher – is a surreal experience. It’s almost like reliving history. For a moment V swears she can see Jackie out of the corner of her eye, but when she turns she finds herself alone. She activates scan mode again, searching for the switch that will open the safe, that will bring Johnny’s body to her and bring an end to their months of searching for a viable solution.

If she’s honest with herself, she misses him. She doesn’t want to think about what it means that she’s been separated from him for less than an hour and is already wishing for his presence, calling for him in her mind the way that she’s used to. Everything is going to change, she realizes. Even when she gets him back, there’s no guarantee that they’ll vibrate on the same frequency, get along as time and proximity have forced them to.

Either way, he deserves his second chance, as she does.

She feels along the wall, hand dipping into a groove in the marble. She claws her fingers around it and pulls, and the sudden sound of stone grinding on stone is deafening around her. Her hands fly up to cover her ears, block out the sound, and she jumps as the pillar begins sliding upwards, blinding gold revealing itself underneath.

The safe is not embedded into the wall; it is all around her, and she stands in the center of it. The panels are constructed of solid gold that glimmers when she shifts her eyes, plaques etched into the wall detailing Arasaka’s most treasured possessions that lie behind each covering. In front of her is Saburo Arasaka’s katana; to her left, she can see a comb, a beautiful flower carved out of porcelain perched on top of it. She turns slowly, and her breath catches in her throat.

Johnny’s body lies upright, tubes snaking into his nose and mouth, an IV in his arm. His lips and fingertips are blue, the pod around him dripping condensation down the sides into a small drain below. He is clad in a tight cryo suit that sticks to him like a second skin, so contrasted from the black kevlar he usually glitches into view wearing. It makes him look smaller, more vulnerable. V’s never seen something so beautiful in her life.

“Alt?” she calls, unsure of her next steps. The penthouse suddenly glows blue, the AI tapping into it systems.

“Remove the tubes,” Alt instructs. V steps closer, opening the door of the strange pod Arasaka has used to house their asset. “Use caution, V. He is prepared, but this will be a rough transition.”

V yanks the tube from his mouth, nearly gagging at the sensation of his throat pulling at it in resistance, the sound. The one in his nose is next to go, and comes without much effort. Finally, she removes the IV carefully. Panels around Johnny’s pod beep in alarm at having lost their asset, but she ignores them.

So does Alt. “There is a personal link in his organic wrist. Jack him into the wall panel, and I will upload his engram back into his body.” V follows her directions, and watches as a single panel transitions from glowing blue, to green, to red. It begins beeping wildly, displaying a spike in heart rate. Johnny’s body trembles.

“Alt?!” V calls, rushing back to Johnny’s body and attempting to hold him still. “What’s happening?” The trembling escalates to seizing, and the panel shuts off completely. V’s eyes fly up and down his body, to the panel, to the ceiling; she yanks out the personal link in panic. “Alt!”

Johnny’s body goes limp, and V’s tongue prepares to let a string of curses loose on the AI for ignoring her. It’s at that moment that his eyes open.

Something like relief floods through V, washes over her. She exhales in a way she hasn’t in months, the vice around her lungs loosening by degrees as she breathes. She watches awareness come to him in waves. First, he becomes aware of himself. He flexes his fingers on both hands, tries to roll his shoulders, feels his own body expand and contract as he inhales and exhales. Then he looks around. Sees the colors of the room, the light dancing off the golden safe walls, the way he can feel the heaviness of the air.

Finally he looks at her. His eyes soften. “Hey there, Samurai.” His voice is rough from disuse, scratchy, but it’s solid and he’s _there_ and suddenly everything that she’s done, every single thing she’s been through in the last months, seems worth it. She has him. And they can go home.

Walking out of the front door is not an option, so they plan their exit through a service entrance that requires crouching and crawling. He tries to put on a brave face for her as they move through the tower wordlessly, but she can tell from the way he hunches over himself, trips over his own feet, that he is unaccustomed to this. Having a body is something he is no longer used to. Hunger, fatigue, the joys of the urinary system; these are all things that he left behind as a construct, things that will have to be relearned.

They slip quietly across Konpeki Plaza, narrowly avoiding drones and turrets, Arasaka’s automated defenses unaffected by Alt’s hostile takeover. The human presence meets them at the edge of the plaza where various reporters are stationed outside with their crews, vying to be the first to enter Arasaka Tower. Night City PD does not recognize them and waves them through, and they meet Excelsior at the curb.

V helps Johnny into the back of the ex-Delamain cab and climbs in behind him, delegating that Excelsior take them back to her apartment. An _as you wish, V_ echoes back at her. He tips his head back as the car accelerates and she follows suit, scrubbing a hand over her face. A hysterical laugh bubbles its way out of her throat, and soon she is cackling, delirious, Johnny staring at her like she’s finally lost it.

“What?” he asks in a deep voice, and she looks over at him and his cryo suit and begins laughing all over again.

“I can’t believe that worked,” she breathes, and reaches underneath her seat to procure a bug-out bag. She hands it to Johnny and he unzips it, finding his kevlar, boots, and sunglasses inside. “Your pants are in my apartment. Figured you might have a hard time putting those on in the taxi.”

He breathes in and exhales long and hard, looking down at the items. He has to fight, then, not to reach for her, to pull her close and drink her in right there in the backseat. Instead, he pulls out the boots and laces them onto his feet, feeling a bit more like his old self.

“So what next?” he asks, and the deference to her makes him feel a little more grounded, like he’s still an engram clinging to her consciousness, instead of a human being that needs to make decisions on his own.

She shrugs and opens her mouth to respond, but Excelsior interrupts, informing them that they have arrived at the megabuilding. V moves to exit the car, but Johnny catches her by the elbow. It’s the first time they’ve touched since the construct, and it feels different, feels warm. “V.”

Her eyes flicker from her elbow to his hand to his face, and he looks earnest, unguarded. “Yeah,” she breathes.

He shakes his head and looks into her eyes, unable to express what he wants to say, begging her to understand. “Yeah,” she says, more solid this time. “Yeah, I know, Johnny.”

She slides out of the vehicle and he follows close on her heels. As they enter the elevator she leans back against the wall and sighs and he notices just how tired she is. How much this quest has taken out of her. He knows she’ll say nothing, so when they reach the apartment he stays quiet, toeing off his shoes and peeling himself out of the suit. He shoves it out of sight behind the couch; he never wants to see it again.

V heads for the shower immediately, yanking off clothes as she goes. Johnny opts to find them both something to eat, frowning when he rifles through the cabinets and finds nothing of substance. Existing as an engram negated the need for food, so he hadn’t paid much attention to whether or not she kept herself fed, but when he considers it he can’t remember the last time she had anything to eat.

He realizes belatedly that he’ll also need to shower and fuel himself, and groans. He reaches into his pocket for a cigarette and remembers; as an engram, he could glitch anything into existence that the construct would allow. Now, he’s back in the physical world, and V doesn’t smoke. The list of things he’s lacking is long, when he considers it. He doesn’t have a place to stay, aside from V taking him in. No money or possessions of his own besides the meager artifacts she’s collected. He thinks of himself that way, he realizes: a walking, talking museum exhibit. The rest of the world probably does, too.

He wonders if V thinks of him that way, if now that he’s exited her head she’ll be ready to jump back into the world, leaving him behind with no skills other than dated charisma and a penchant for blowing things up. He’ll follow her, of course; he has no other choice, if he’s to make sure she stays alive and in one piece. He just hopes she still wants him, and still wants him around.

The door slides open with a creak and V emerges from the bathroom looking more relaxed than he’s seen her in months. Steam escapes from the crack in the door and slides off of her as residual warmth; her hair hangs wet around her face. “Your turn,” she says, and tosses a dry towel at him. He reaches up belatedly with his left hand, the reflexes in the metal arm not having caught up. The towel hits him in the face as V snickers.

“You did that on purpose,” Johnny grumbles. She takes him by the hand, interrupting his brooding, and pulls him towards the bathroom.

“Stop thinking so hard,” she tells him, and he just grunts in response. She restarts the shower water and points at a pair of soft sweatpants neatly folded on the sink. “You’re not gonna like it, but that’s the best I’ve got,” she says apologetically. “We’ll get you something else tomorrow.”

Recognition flashes in his mind and he frowns at her. “Are those…”

“River’s? Yeah.” She looks torn between embarrassment and amusement.

“You want me to wear a cop’s clothes?” he asks, incredulous. “A cop that sob-storied his way right into your fucking pants, against my better judgement?”

“If you hate them so much, don’t wear them.” She realizes her mistake too late, as Johnny’s mouth twists up in a wry smile.

“Well, kitten, if you wanted this hot piece of ass in your bed so bad you coulda just said so,” he teases. V flushes but scoffs at him, shoving the sweats into his chest and leaving the bathroom.

Johnny takes his time in the shower, letting the hot water run over him. The sensation is foreign; he can feel each bead of water as it dances down his form, loosening his muscles tense from decades of rigidity. The warmth envelopes him and he moans, tipping his head back so the water can run over the top of his head. He’s forgotten what this feels like, the slight tickle of the shower head, the heaviness of his hair. He reaches up and scratches at his scalp, dragging another small groan from his lips.

V knocks at the door, opening it so he can hear her voice unfiltered. Steam blocks her view, so she calls out, “Johnny, are you okay? I heard something…”

She freezes as he groans out, “Yeah, ‘m fuckin’ great, kitten. Just forgot how water feels while I was, you know, dead.” His voice is still rusty but the steam loosens it, and to her ears he sounds absolutely obscene.

She closes the door before her hormones completely overpower her and she does something stupid like peel off her own clothes and get into the shower with him. She tries not to listen to his groans of pleasure, opting to walk to the kitchen and frown at takeout menus. Finding nothing appetizing, she sighs and climbs into her bed.

She opens her eyes to Johnny standing above her, sweatpants slung low on his thin waist. His skin is red from the shower and his hair is pushed back out of his face. She takes the moment to really observe him. He looks older somehow, despite not having aged a day. She thinks it’s the lines that circle his eyes, or maybe his eyes themselves. They have more life in them.

“You need a shave,” she remarks around a yawn. “Look like a damn, what’d you call it? A ‘tarmac rat’?”

He smirks down at her. “Fuck off. Ya got room for one more?”

V shifts so she is laying on her side, making room for Johnny to climb in as well. It’s awkward, watching him move around her rather than glitch directly into position. It makes him seem more human, and she smiles as he settles in facing her. He doesn’t meet her eyes, though, fiddling with the personal link sticking out of his organic wrist. “I hate the fuckin’ crazed scientist that added this,” he says quietly. “Makes me feel like a goddamn corpo tool.”

V takes his hand, running her fingers lightly over his palm. “We should go see Vik. Find out what they were planning to do with you,” she says, wincing apologetically.

He nods, letting her pull his hand close to her chest. He splays his fingers, clenches them, yanks at a loose thread on her t-shirt. The way she curls around his arm, wiggling until the mattress feels just right – it’s something he thought he’d never get to do again, and being here in a physical body is better than he could’ve ever imagined. Her skin is warm; her hair smells like soap. “The feeling is different,” he thinks out loud, “from the chip.”

“Mmm?” V asks, yawning once more. She presses a button above her head that kills the lights in the apartment.

“Yeah,” he says in the dark. “Heavier. More overwhelming.” He chuckles lowly. “And my libido…”

She groans. “You can deal with your man-meat later. Go to sleep, Johnny.”

“As you wish, princess.”

Johnny wakes before V does, to soft light filtering in from the window; it’s early. He and V have somehow gotten tangled up in the blankets, his leg thrown over hers and the top half of her body curled into his side. He’s comfortable despite the strange position, and smiles to himself. He can’t remember the last time he slept with a woman and woke up without substances wracking his body or one of them needing to visit a ripperdoc for a disease transmission test.

He’d be more than happy to lie there forever, V’s warmth contenting him, and he almost closes his eyes. But he runs through the chaos of the previous day and forces himself awake as he lists their agenda in his mind.

V wakes, then, a cough forcing her to open her eyes and push herself upright. Johnny places his hand on her back in what he hopes is a soothing gesture while she collects herself. “You alright?”

“Yeah – yeah, I’m fine,” she breathes out, and immediately stirs, disentangling them from the blanket. “We gotta get to Vik’s today, y’know.”

Her lack of self preservation instinct, once endearing, worries him. He places his hand on her arm, stilling her. “I know. Go drink some water. We’ll head out after.”

She blinks at him, then nods. “Your pants’re in the closet.”

As they descend the elevator, V calls Scorpion’s bike to take them to Vik’s shop. “Why wouldn’t you call the Porsche?” Johnny asks as they approach it at the curb. “Or your car?”

V looks lovingly at the bike and straddles it, looking back at Johnny. The light hits her eyes and she brings up one hand to shield them, the wind picking up and ruffling her hair and _oh_ , suddenly he doesn’t mind it quite so much, almost wishing he had a camera with him. He takes his time climbing on, running his hands up and down her sides over her leather jacket. “Don’t get too comfortable. I’m a horrible driver,” she jokes, and pulls away from the curb.

V has never seen Vik pace in her life, always the pillar of steady dependability. It’s what sparked her crush on him, years ago, that still has yet to completely subside. But as V explains that she’s got _Johnny fucking Silverhand_ with her, back from the dead, _and_ he needs to be looked at, her ripperdoc paces from his desk to the chair and back. A fight plays out on the small television, not the trademark match Vik’s always watching, but something new, a recent bout.

“They operated on him, Vik. We– _he_ needs to know what he’s got inside of him,” V begs. “You’re the only one I trust to do that.”

He stops pacing and levels her with a look. “Do you know how dangerous it is for you to parade around Night City with him? It wasn’t good enough to have him in your head, now his meat’s gotta be here, too,” he grumbles. “Bring him in. We’ll make this quick.”

V heads back to the door, motioning for Johnny to follow her inside. For his part, he’s polite, shaking Vik’s hand wordlessly before settling into the chair. Unlike most Night City citizens, he’s missing a jack behind his ear, so Vik offers him a cord for the personal link in his hand before crossing his arms. “I can only run a diagnostic on my equipment,” he explains. “Any installs or wipes for the arm’ll have to run on some vintage shit, and I ain’t got it.” Johnny says nothing, lets Vik pull the monitor aside and run the program.

V chimes in encouragingly. “Do what you can, doc.”

The ripperdoc studies the monitor for a moment, then lets out a low whistle under his breath. “I don’t know what they were plannin’ on doin’ to you, my friend, but they added some things, that’s for sure.” He pulls the monitor around and Johnny and V both lean in.

“Personal link in your ‘ganic hand. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.” The visual shifts and zooms as Vik explains. “You’ve got enhanced features in your arm. There’s a blade in there that’ll come loose based on some neural switches that’ve yet to be configured.”

“Neural switches?” Johnny asks.

“Like a…twitch, a set of minuscule movements you do with your body to let your brain know it’s time to fire up your implants. V uses ‘em to activate different settings on her Kiroshis,” Vik explains before continuing. “They added quickhacking implants, but I can’t see the full specs on this software.”

Johnny looks over at V. “I’ve always been shit at hacking. ’S why Spider had to do all the dirty work. What in the hell were they gonna do.”

“It gets worse,” Vik says, and zooms in to a spot on the monitor that shows a rudimentary brain scan, something sitting in the spot right behind Johnny’s ear. “Looks like they hadn’t installed it yet, but that’s the bones of a behavioral chip right there.” Johnny tenses.

“What’s it supposed to do?” V asks.

“Not sure. But if that chip is out there, you need to stay far away from it. You’re technically still an engram – you both are – so once it’s uploaded, it’ll kick in instantly. Whatever it’s designed to do will have total control.”

“Shit,” Johnny whispers, sounding like he’s seen a ghost.

Vik unplugs the personal link and hands it back to Johnny, who rubs at his wrist and stands. “Thanks,” he says, to V’s surprise. He gestures at the merc. “I doubt she told you the whole story, but her condition’s pretty damn pressing too. Anything you got to slow down the process?”

“I’ll fuck around, work on something,” Vik promises, and shifts his gaze to V. “Be _careful_ until it’s done.”

She nods, holds her head up and her shoulders back. “I believe in you. Thanks, Doc.”

“Feel free to stop by anytime, V. _Alone_.” Johnny nearly doubles back, pulls his shades down to ask what exactly Vik intends to do with V _alone_ , but she grabs his arm and pulls him towards the exit.

Vik calls after her right before the door shuts behind her and she pops her head back in, catching the jacket he tosses to her at the last minute. “Cover up that damn arm! It’s only been fifty years.”

“I don’t like the cut of his flirtatious jib,” Johnny comments as they make their way back to the curb. He shrugs on the jacket Vik’s given him nonetheless.

“He’s twice my age,” V admonishes.

“Didn’t stop you with me, kitten,” he purrs. V scoffs, rolls her eyes, moves to straddle the bike; Johnny stops her with a hand on her arm and points down the street. “You need to eat. We both do.”

V stuffs her hands into her pockets as they walk side by side to the diner on the corner. Thankfully, the street is mostly empty this early in the morning. “He was right about one thing. It’s dangerous for us to be out on the streets like this.” They pass the alcove that belongs to Gary the Prophet, who ceases his relentless yelling and cocks his head at Johnny as they pass, furrowing his eyebrows like he’s trying to figure something out. V ducks her head and rushes them by.

“Why, you think the porcelain bitch is gunnin’ for us?”

“Better to be safe than sorry,” V says, and places a call to the blocked number belonging to Hanako Arasaka, thankful she still has the contact.

The line opens but stays silent, and Hanako is nowhere in view. After a moment, a shadowed figure appears. “I take it you are calling to find out if I will allow you to live,” a detached, modulated voice says. It reminds her eerily of Alt.

“I’m calling to _confirm_ it. I did what you asked.”

“And managed to fry a majority of Araska’s systems in the process.” The modulator carries exasperation across the line, but V thinks Hanako seems impressed.

“No guidelines were given. I completed the job best I knew how.”

“Hmm,” Hanako says, considering V’s request. “Tell me, are you feeling better? Now that you are separated from Mr. Silverhand.”

“Hardly see how my health is a priority of yours.” V turns to Johnny as they arrive at the diner. The neon ‘OPEN’ sign glows and reflects off his skin. He holds the door open for her, letting her walk in and pick a place to sit.

“I ask because I have a job for you. A package I need retrieved, from Militech. I will send you the details.”

“A job?” V asks, incredulous. “I–“

“Retrieve it, and you have my word that Arasaka will no longer be a concern.”

Unable to pass up the deal, V sighs, growls out a “Fine,” and the line goes dead.

“Didn’t sound like that went well,” Johnny said. “Not that I can hear your calls anymore.”

“Oh, I’m sorry that I have an inch of privacy now,” she snarks. Johnny looks at her and rolls his eyes, settling back in his booth across from her.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he says, throwing his hand up in exasperation.

She sighs, scrubbing one hand over her face as she watches the waitress approach the table. “Coffee, please.”

“And two Night Watch Breakfasts,” Johnny chimes in. The waitress walks away.

V glares at him. “I’m not necessarily hungry at the moment.”

Johnny cocks his head at her. “When was the last time you ate?” She falters, eyes flying up to the ceiling as she considers his question. “Yeah. I woke up yesterday and I’m already starving. You need to eat something, V.”

She sighs, giving up on that particular argument but unwilling to admit that he’s right. So she starts another one, the second the waitress drops off their coffee and food. “We need to find that chip. If Vik is right, it poses the most danger to you.”

“Uh-huh. And your condition is gonna disappear, and the corps will realize everything they’re doing is wrong.” He stabs at his eggs.

“Vik is–“

“Buying you _time_ ,” he reminds her around a mouth full of food. “That doesn’t mean we fuck around with it.”

Knowing she’s lost again, V gives in, digging into her own food. She changes the subject. “Hanako offered me a job in exchange for leaving us alone. What do you think?” 

“I think she can shove her gig, and her company, up that tight ass of hers.”

“Johnny,” V groans. “We have to get her off our backs. No harm in taking it.”

He just hums noncommittally, swallowing a mouthful of food. “You’re gonna do what you want either way, V. Never do fuckin’ listen. I’ll hold my ‘I told you so’ ’til the end.”

Aggravated, she finishes the rest of her meal in silence, transferring the eddies plus a sizable tip to the waitress before stalking out of the restaurant. She doesn’t check to see whether Johnny is behind her, ignoring him until they’re both seated on her bike.

She turns her head so he can hear her voice over the loud hum of the engine. “Listen, I don’t wanna wake up one morning to find Arasaka fuckin’ standing over our– _my_ bed,” she yells. “If I have to do Hanako a couple favors, that’s what I’ll do.” Without waiting for a response, she kicks her throttle and speeds in the direction of home.


	2. The Path to Stop

“I’m askin’ you nice here, kitten.”

“And I’m telling you nice, Johnny. I’m not letting you go!”

They stand toe-to-toe, chests almost flush with each other, as she glares at him. To her annoyance, the intimidation isn’t working one bit.

“You don’t have to be so fuckin’ stubborn all the time.” She cocks her head at him, daring him to say something else to piss her off. “Besides,” he adds, “you can’t ‘let me’ do anything, darlin’. Been a while since I had to listen to every word that comes out of that pretty mouth. Got a choice now, ‘member?”

She thinks briefly about shoving him. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” V growls. Johnny puts his hands up in surrender.

“That mean I get to comment on your ass next?” At that, she does shove him, and he trips over his own two feet, falling on his ass.

“Got anything else to say?” she asks, looming over him with her lips pursed. He shakes his head, and she offers him her hand. He grasps her arm, letting her pull him up. “Let’s go.”

The details from Hanako are vague, leading them to a warehouse on the edge of Santo Domingo. V is instructed to stay out of sight, retrieve the package, and return to her apartment, where she’ll be contacted with a drop location. The directive that follows is the most chilling: if she is seen, she is to clear the building, leaving no witnesses behind.

The GPS marker informs her that the warehouse rests in a cluster of buildings underneath the dam. V parks the bike a block away and they both dismount, choosing to scope the area rather than rush in headfirst. Johnny follows her to an abandoned auto repair shop that has a roof within sight line of the warehouse, settling next to her to watch.

He mounts the rifle he’s opted to borrow from V, fiddling with the scope before resting the butt of the rifle on his shoulder and tilting his head until he has a clear view. It’s intriguing to watch; from the few times she’s seen him run jobs in his memories, V’s never seen him this collected, this patient.

“I did fight in New Vietnam, you know,” he remarks, still watching the building through the scope.

She chuckles. “Didn’t say anything.”

He glances at her briefly, eyes flying up and down her form, before returning to the warehouse. “Don’t gotta say anything. Get in position, Samurai.”

“You know, I don’t enjoy being told what to do, especially by you, Silverhand,” she says, as she crouches beside him and sets up her own rifle.

The stakeout is, for the most part, uneventful. Johnny spends upwards of two hours watching the warehouse; V spends a majority of her time watching Johnny. He pretends not to notice as her eyes trace his form, the line of his strong shoulders, the way his hair falls around his face, the curve of his back. She forces her eyes away and back to her scope when her thoughts start to wander a bit too far – when she starts to imagine those shoulders pinning her to the floor beneath them, her hands in that hair.

She’s about to call it when they hit their third hour of stillness; even Johnny starts to fidget, growing bored. But the garage door set into the front of the warehouse opens, and two unmarked black vans pull out. She scans them, finding them full of Militech agents.

“We should follow them,” she says to Johnny in a low voice. He shakes his head.

“Bike’s too loud. We’d be made, instantly.”

“Shit. We go in after them, then.” She slings the strap of her rifle over her shoulders and climbs down the building, Johnny following after her. She approaches the building slowly, scan mode still activated on her Kiroshis.

There are no security cameras on the outside of the building, which strikes her as odd for such a high profile operation. She pings the electric keypad next to the door and yellow lines spread out in all directions, but there don’t seem to be any human forms inside. Johnny steps up to the keypad, noting two smudges in the dirt that covers the numbers, on the keys 1 and 3. “Not sure what order these go in,” he comments. “Think they’ll notice if I put in the wrong code?”

V focuses on it and activates a short circuit quickhack. The keypad malfunctions, fizzling out in a mess of sparks. The garage door opens and she flashes Johnny a grin, ducking underneath it. He simply rolls his eyes, pulling the door shut behind them.

As collected as he was during their stakeout, it’s nothing compared to how quietly, how intently Johnny moves through the warehouse. Something is off; they both feel it, but whereas V is anxious to uncover it, Johnny is cautious. He’s been in the military, had a taste of merc life, and committed an act of terrorism; and while the latter is his biggest claim to fame, she can’t disregard the sheer amount of experience he has with the former. And it shows in the way he advances, light on his feet, in the way he checks around every corner before they move forward.

It’s almost too easy to make their way from room to room, searching for something valuable, something guarded. It’s the finding that’s the problem; the building is empty, save for lonely data shards containing nothing but mediocre, last-century erotica novels. They return to the entrance and V is about to contact Hanako when Johnny shouts at her from across the room.

She looks up and he waves her over, gesturing to a panel nearly hidden, inset into the wall beside one of the doors.

“Think you can crack this one, Neo?”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Johnny grumps. “Just… open it.”

V jacks in, inputting the proper sequence code, and has the panel under her control within seconds. Johnny nods his appreciation and nudges the door open with his shoulder, whistling when he enters an elevator. “Bingo.”

He punches the ‘down’ button and the elevator lurches, cables grinding against each other. “Well that sounds totally safe,” V snarks. Johnny chuckles at her.

“If you wanted safe, you’d have skipped town the second you got me out of your head.”

She sticks her tongue out at him. “Maybe I still will. Nomad life, what do you think?”

Johnny shakes his head, suddenly serious. “Don’t think I could live like that.”

Before V can respond, the elevator falters to a stop. The doors open and Johnny immediately drops his shoulders into a crouch, leaning for the shadows. An agent patrolling the area has stopped to inspect the elevator, wondering why it’s suddenly descended. V backs into the corner, waiting to pounce on the guard. They have a short silent conversation, Johnny raising his eyebrows and cocking his head – _are you takin’ him?_ – and V nodding – _yeah, I got ‘im_ – before the guard steps into the elevator. V is on him before he can even spot Johnny, capturing him in a headlock and breaking his neck in one smooth motion. She drags him into the shadows of the elevator, past where the dim ring of light reaches, and they press on.

There are more agents than they expected; for the most part, they manage to evade eyes. Johnny stands guard while V jacks into a computer, taking over the surveillance system remotely to search for their asset. She finds it in the heart of the warehouse’s basement, in a small room surrounded by Militech guards: an enclosure, not unlike the one that housed the Relic, emblazoned with the Arasaka logo.

“I don’t see us getting out of here with that thing without being seen,” V whispers.

“Guess we got one choice then.”

“What, you bring a nuke with you?”

“Ha fucking ha,” Johnny deadpans. “Diversion’s not a bad idea, though.”

V reconnects, searching for the largest piece of warehouse equipment she can manage to quickhack at such long range. She settles on a massive forklift in the center of the basement, having to concentrate intensely on the short circuiting sequence.

“Boom,” she says quietly, right before the forklift detonates, sending other pieces of equipment flying. The very foundation rocks, Militech agents pouring out of their respective rooms. There’s shouting and COs issuing commands and Johnny drags V away from the computer, their path to the asset clear. Johnny leads the way as they rush to collect the package before the guards resume their patrols. The room is locked, when they reach it, but he wedges his fingers into the doorjamb and pries it open without much resistance.

The enclosure sits in the center of a long steel table, behind which sits a figure V thought she’d never have the pleasure of seeing again: Meredith Stout.

“Johnny Silverhand,” Meredith greets. “Heard you were back from the dead.” She rolls a lit cigarette between her fingertips as she speaks, pauses to take a long drag. “See you still have a hard on for blowing shit up.”

“That one was me, actually.” V steps out from behind Johnny and Meredith’s eyes go wide for a moment before she schools her expression. “Meredith.”

“V.” Johnny looks back and forth between the two of them, sparks of recognition showing on his face, but he doesn’t comment.

“Promise this wasn’t personal. I just need to grab that, and we can head back out the way we came.” V offers her a perfunctory, toothless smile, reaching for the enclosure.

“Sorry about it,” Meredith says, as she draws her weapon with the hand not currently occupied and aims it at V. “But I can’t let you take that. Can’t lose my second shipment in a row, you see. Second chances and all that.”

A shot rings out. Meredith’s body flies back against the wall, toppling her chair, and when V looks over her forehead is a mess of blood and disassembled cerebral matter. Johnny holds the smoking gun in his hand. “Got my second chance, too. Not letting some corpo bitch you stuck your tongue in fuck that up.” He won’t meet her eyes and for a second V can’t tell if he’s talking about his new lease on life, or about her.

It’s not difficult to hear the guards advancing on their position; for all the corp’s secrecy, they’ve never been good at stealth. “We gotta delta out of here, Johnny,” V says. “Now!”

“I’m thinkin’, kitten,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut briefly, shaking his head. “We clear the building. It’s our only option. Fuck!” He can’t decide what he hates more, Arasaka, Militech, or sending V into a combat situation where they are so heavily outnumbered. He grabs the enclosure with his left hand, gripping his Malorian with his right. “I go out first.”

He leaves no room for argument as he body checks the door, coming face to face with a score of agents, guns drawn. He ducks behind a pillar as bullets begin flying, V pressed in close to him as she executes rapid-fire quickhacks. He ducks out every few seconds, firing in between her short circuits and memory wipes. The guards press in, fanning out around their position. She unsheathes her katana.

They are a lethal pair. Whereas she fights like the wind, fast, elusive, he beats against their opponents like the ocean against rocks, charging in solid and cutting through them without fear. They complement each other, frontal assault and deadly, unexpected force, and manage to mow down the remaining agents within minutes.

He reloads his gun with a flourish, the one she’s seen in his memories, and watching it from her own point of view sends a deep flush through her.

He turns to check on her, eyes roaming over her form wildly, and sets down the enclosure. His hands hover inches from her body, needing to check, wanting to _touch_. He gestures to the red pooling on her shirt just underneath her jacket, the spatters across her arms and face. “That your blood?” he asks, breathless. She shakes her head.

Almost too late, she registers movement in the shadows behind him, a knife glinting as it flies through the air directly towards Johnny. Her reflexes kick in like lightning and she jumps in front of him to bat it out of the air with her katana. A figure rushes at her, clad in Militech armor. Their training is good, but they’re too slow. She slices with precision, aiming for the weak spots she’s been forced to memorize by now: the neck, the inner thighs, the small of their back. Only seconds pass before she’s disposed of them, blood dripping from her sword, the life bleeding out of the body underneath her.

He is in awe, frozen as he watches her clean her katana on the fallen agent’s clothing. She is absolutely poisonous when she turns to snap at him. “You have to be more aware. You could have been k–“ He cuts her off, grabbing her arm roughly and pulling her body into his, pressing his lips firmly against hers. She melts, ice under his fire, sighing into his mouth and he releases her arm, grasps at her waist hard enough to bruise. His lips are softer than she expected, sliding against hers and she feels as if he is claiming her. She slips her tongue into his mouth, a show of submission, _you can have me_ , and he captures it between his lips, sucking on it briefly before releasing. His hand finds its way up her side, sliding across her collarbone to her throat and gripping, pulling her impossibly closer. She goes willingly, prompting him to tighten his grip. The moan that escapes her throat brings them both back down to earth and their eyes snap open; they release each other and flinch back like they’ve been electrocuted.

Johnny blinks at her with wide eyes, his lips obscenely red. She wants to move back in, pin him to the wall and let him consume her. He wants to see how many different places on her body he can put his mouth and he’d be willing to do it on the floor right there, Militech corpses be damned.

“We, ah–we should keep moving,” V suggests, chagrined when her voice comes out weak, breathless. “C’mon,” she says, shifting so her grip on her katana is more stable. Her hand shakes when she picks up the enclosure and she frowns down at it, ignoring the tingling sensation pulling at her lips. Johnny busies himself by rifling through the pockets of the last agent and, finding nothing but useless ammunition, follows V to the elevator. They ascend in silence, refusing to make eye contact.

V sends a call to the encrypted line the moment they step into the apartment.

“Engrams are trouble,” she tells him while it rings, “present company included. I don’t wanna keep this any longer than we have to.”

Johnny’s inclined to agree, considering his suspicions about whose brain is stored in the enclosure they currently possess, but he does not voice them to V. She disappears into the bathroom, scrubbing her face of blood and liberating her hair from its tie as she negotiates the drop with Hanako.

He hears the shower start and she climbs in without another word to him. So he undresses, peeling himself out of his leather pants and unbuckling his kevlar, throwing them into a pile in V’s closet. He shakes out his own hair, settling onto the couch and tipping his head back. He’s reminded of an additional thing he hates about having a body: the exhaustion, that bone-deep passenger manifesting as a chronic ache, and he can’t escape it no matter how much he sleeps or sings or smokes. He raises his arms above his head, rolling his shoulders, and is interrupted by a hard thud.

“V?” he calls, apprehensive. There’s no answer. He stands. “V!” He opens the bathroom door and inhales sharply; V is curled up on the shower floor, eyes barely open, breathing shallow. He drops to his knees, hands hovering over her shaking form.

“‘M fine, Johnny,” she says weakly. “Just need a minute.”

“Jesus,” he laments, sliding an arm under her torso and pulling her towards him. “Let your dumb ass out of my sight for one fuckin’ minute.”

He deposits her onto the bed, gingerly drying her where he can, and paces back and forth across the room. While the Relic malfunctions have stopped thanks to the chip no longer being active, her health isn’t in good shape. Not for the first time he hopes that Vik’s drugs can slow down the process, ease her pain.

When she falls asleep, Johnny shrugs on his jacket and sneaks out into the dark megabuilding, taking the elevator down. He avoids his Porsche, finding it too flashy for his ends, and calls V’s Excelsior instead. The cab pulls up to the curb and he climbs in, sliding his fingers over the wheel, feeling the engine hum beneath him. He’s missed driving, he realizes, one of the more exhilarating things about being human.

Driving in Night City is an exceptional adrenaline rush and Johnny drives like a practiced professional, pushing the poor cab past a hundred miles per hour as he weaves in and out of traffic. The radio is set to whatever station is playing halfway decent rock and he rolls the windows down, letting the wind ruffle his hair. He could do this for hours, he thinks, drive and keep on driving, blasting music and slamming on the gas pedal until the car gives out.

It’s almost too soon when he pulls up outside Vik’s clinic. He tries the clinic door first, frowning when he finds it locked. He senses a presence behind him and turns, finding the creepy chick with the hair – Misty, he remembers – leaning against the wall, watching him. She raises a hand to wave in greeting.

“Vik’s not here. Is there something I can help you with?” Misty asks.

Johnny raises an eyebrow. “You also an implants expert?” He knows he’s being bitchy; he doesn’t particularly care.

She raises her eyebrows right back. Doesn’t respond. Simply turns her back on him, entering her shop. He’s about to climb back into the Excelsior when she looks at him over her shoulder. “Come on,” she says.

He looks to the heavens, _fuck, kill me now,_ and follows.

Her shop is eclectic; he’s surprised to find that, upon entering, he feels calmer. The candles flickering throughout the small space create the illusion of safety, and against his own better judgement he finds himself dropping his guard.

She walks to the counter where he’s watched her pull tarot cards for V and he groans. “Fuck me. Listen, hair – I know that whole destiny, meant-to-find-each-other thing worked on V, but,” he shrugs, “I just think fortune telling is a load of horseshit.” She just rolls her eyes at him and reaches underneath the counter, pulling a bottle of pills from one of the shelves.

“Don’t worry,” she smiles, “I won’t waste my time. I think it’s all a bit beyond you.”

He can sense the bait, and he lets himself fall for it, bracing his forearms against the counter. “Enlighten me.”

“The idea that a higher power might be trying to signal something to you,” she elaborates, and holds the pills out to Johnny. “It disrupts your control.”

He takes them and tucks them into his jacket pocket, crossing his arms over his chest. “Spent weeks as a ghost bein’ dragged around by a Night City merc. If I had any control, it’s fuckin’ gone.”

“I won’t comment on the fact that that scares the shit out of you,” she says slyly.

“If it scared me, you think I’d still be here?”

“Before? Probably not,” Misty concedes. “But I think you and V have gone through a lot. You’ve changed – you _both_ have.” Johnny doesn’t respond right away, so she continues. “Fear doesn’t make you a coward,” she says. “Just human.”

Johnny is suddenly thankful that his shades conceal his eyes, because he’s sure this chick could read every single doubt he’s had about being _human_ since he woke up in Konpeki Plaza’s penthouse.

 _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and squints suspiciously at her through his shades. “The tarot thing – how does it work?”

Misty smiles, a real, genuine thing, and it disarms him just that little bit more. “Well, it’s not ‘fortune-telling.’ It’s an assessment of your journey, and major themes that can help guide you in the right direction.”

“Mhm. What do I need to do, show you my palm, tell you what time I was born?” He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and the glare she sends his way makes him shove them back in. He taps rhythms on his wrist instead. “Hate to say it, but my family didn’t give enough of a fuck to tell me.”

“Nope. Just need you.” She slides her deck to the center of the table, shuffles it with expert hands, and pulls a card from the top. “First one is the Six of Cups reversed. You find yourself trying to cling to the past. Things have changed, and you’re not sure how to keep up.”

Johnny glances away, saying nothing, and Misty knows she’s struck a nerve. She lets him ruminate on it for a moment, then draws the next card, setting it beside the first.

“The Five of Swords. You’re looking back at your old self, letting who you used to be consume you. It’s a struggle for you to live in the present, because the things you did in the past defined you. They speak to you even now, dictating your actions, and you can’t decide who to listen to.”

He leans in, then. “This is all getting a little too precise to be true.”

“To be true, or to make you comfortable?” Misty asks. “I can stop, but then you wouldn’t find out your culmination.” Johnny’s fingers twitch, searching for a cigarette that he can’t have, and he nods wordlessly.

“Eight of wands, reversed. Normally this’d mean accepting yourself, embracing your talents, but…”

“But?”

“Reversed... You’re split apart, like two halves.” Johnny snorts, thinking of himself, and V, sleeping in her bed miles away. There was a time when she couldn’t eat without him feeling the heat on the roof of his mouth; couldn’t fuck without his own arousal burning. He’s always fallen flat to his own ears, but his little merc and her whirlwind of emotions had swept him off his feet. Now there’s nothing, and he’s alone.

“You don’t say.”

Misty stares at the cards, an influx of information rolling into her like waves. “They’re conflicting. You’re struggling to reconcile the different pieces – different identities.” She looks up from the cards, frowning at him with a look of sadness on her face, of confusion. “You hate yourself.”

Johnny gives up, pulling the cigarettes from his pocket again. She lets him, this time, patient as he pulls one from the pack and lights it, places it between his lips. He lets out a humorless laugh. “Huh. Probably hated myself since ’98.” He’s courteous enough, at least, to turn his head and blow the smoke downward, away from her.

“That’s the message: the path to stop,” she says, looking back down at the cards. “All sides of you have to communicate, to forgive and accept each other. You’re already becoming better. Now you take charge of it.”

He looks up at her, and she believes in what she’s saying so much that he doesn’t have the heart to tell her the truth; that the strongest parts of him are also the angriest, that he doesn’t know what forgiveness even looks like. But he thinks that she knows, somehow, so he shifts gears. “Got V waiting on me.”

Misty cocks her head at him but doesn’t comment on the subject change, and he decides then and there that he likes her. He’ll bring her something, ask V what she likes. “You’re asking about the time.” She sighs. “Vik told me they should slow things down, add a couple months, at least. Maybe three more? Give you both some time to figure things out.”

He nods. “Thanks.”

“Tell V I’ll come check in on her soon.”

When he returns, V is sitting upright in bed, a bottle of cheap synth wine held loosely in her grasp. Her hair is mussed, her tank top riding up to expose her stomach. Johnny has to look away.

“Hey,” she greets.

“Hey.” He reaches into his pocket and tosses her the pills, and she glances at the label before taking two, chasing them with a gulp from the bottle.

“Got a call while you were out. A job.”

He raises one eyebrow. “You passed out earlier, and you wanna take a job.”

She holds up the pill bottle. “’S that not what these are for?” It’s rhetorical, and he ignores her, resolving to press the issue later. “You ‘member Jefferson Peralez?”

Johnny snorts, pulling a chair over to her bedside and plopping down in it. “The one with his skull sponge in a blender? How could I forget.” He sheds his jacket, then his shirt, watching her watch him, her eyes fixating on his metal arm as the light glints off of it. She’s getting more inebriated by the second; her gaze looks hungry, and he struggles to keep himself in his chair.

She takes another long pull. “Needs help. Got some info on that… AI who’s fuckin’ with his brain, wants me to attend this gonk gala fundraiser to sus the henchmen out.” She checks him out shamelessly, eyes roaming over his form, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“Oh goody, mingling with the corpo rats,” Johnny says, carding a hand through his hair and closing his eyes, trying to relax. “When is this bullshit happening. Wanna know how much time I have to stage a coup.”

“Ohh, you just ass _ume_ you’re comin’ _with_ me?”

Johnny’s eyes snap open, settling on V with a warning glare. “That was a given.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I c’n do what I _want_ , Silverhand. Even’f I do it _alone_.”

“Keep telling yourself that, kitten.”

“Two days, Johnny,” is all she says, and she takes another pull before passing the bottle to Johnny. He avoids looking down at it, setting it beside him on the floor without bringing it to his own lips. He watches her shift to lie down, the seam of her top teasing him, coming dangerously close to her tits. He realizes he’s touch starved, still damned horny from their kiss in the warehouse. “Gotta call Kerry, get something to wear,” she mumbles, letting her eyes slip closed.

When her breathing evens out, he retreats to the bathroom, letting his head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. He thinks about her lying there in bed, the softness of her skin, the light slur of her words from the wine. He feels a rush of tension between his legs and looks down; his dick is straining against his pants, the friction making him bite his lips and inhale sharply. He thumbs the button open and the zipper down, shoving his pants out of the way to free his cock, wrapping his hand around it.

He jerks himself softly at first, thumb smearing precome over the head of his dick, chest heaving. He thinks of V, in her bed not feet away from him, wonders if she can hear his quickening breath and muttered curses, and moves his hand faster up and down the shaft of his cock. He fists his left hand in his hair; imagines it’s her hand, pulling on the strands as she moans his name, and he twists his right wrist, feeling his orgasm build in the base of his stomach.

He thinks about their kiss, wrapping his hand around her throat, the way she slipped her tongue into his mouth, and he groans softly, praying V’s still asleep. An accursed thought comes to him, then: V sucking his cock, wrapping her lips around it and hollowing her cheeks, and he has to press his fist into his mouth to keep from calling out her name. He’s fucking into his hand, now, imagining it’s the tightness of her throat, and he doesn’t want to admit how much the idea of her gagging as he fucks her face turns him on. He’s ashamed, but that just sends more heat through his body, making him go weak in the knees as he jerks himself off.

He comes, shuddering with restraint, whispering V’s name over and over like a prayer. He washes his hands and returns to bed, feeling unsatisfied. It doesn’t help that V wraps herself around him, locking one of his legs in between hers. She sighs at the pressure on her cunt and he tenses, thinking that if she starts rubbing herself off on him in her drunken sleep, he’s going to die.

Instead she opens her eyes, shifts so she’s half on top of him, whispers his name in the dark. He’s not sure who kisses who, but their lips bruise together and she’s suddenly everywhere, hands underneath his shirt and in his goddamn hair, and he has to take her by the wrists and stop them.

“You’re drunk, V.” She just whines, bucking her hips involuntarily and he exhales hard, tensing up every muscle in his body.

“Please…” she whimpers as she mouths at his neck. “Heard’you… know you want this bad ’s I do.” And damn if that doesn’t short circuit his brain, no quickhack needed. He’s impossibly hard, his libido and his conscience stuck in a gridlock.

“If you still want to tomorrow, I’ll fuck you five times over, kitten,” he promises. She pouts, but rolls off of him, facing the wall.

“Fine. But you gotta cuddle me, Silverhand.”

He can comply with that. He shuffles closer and settles an arm over her, very pointedly angling his hips away so that his still-hard cock is not brushing any part of her body. She falls asleep almost instantly, wrapping herself around his arm.

The embarrassment when V wakes is almost tangible. She hasn’t made a habit of throwing herself at men or women in her life, choosing instead to let her partners come to her, to ply affection out of her.

Which is why she makes herself scarce as quickly as she can, muttering excuses about plans with Kerry and picking up her dress for Peralez’s gala. She moves like a whirlwind, gathering her hair into a ponytail and ghosting out of the door with the enclosure, leaving Johnny still sitting up in bed, confused and bleary-eyed. He wonders for a second about the source of her awkwardness, if she’s embarrassed about her actions or her desire for _him_ specifically. Unwilling to unpack it, he lets himself fall back into bed, throwing his hand dramatically over his eyes as he groans, his cock already hardening at the memory of last night.

V doesn’t return that afternoon, and by evening he has to push his worry down and out of sight. If it wasn’t for her plans with Kerry he’d go out looking for her, but he’s confident that they’re simply too busy with each other to remember him, sitting at home waiting. Johnny almost goes out to the Afterlife, fueled with anger and spite and _since when did he start waiting up for anyone?_ but he finds the gesture empty, not feeling like having his usual brand of fun without V there to egg him on, to yell at him when he takes it too far. He might also be avoiding Rogue, but he shoves that down along with the rest. Instead he again finds himself at Misty’s esoterica, allowing her to read his cards once more – though nothing nearly as life-changing comes out of it this time – and tell him in her softly droning voice about songs from his era she’d listened to when she was a kid, while he shoots down all of her music choices with playfully grating remarks about the artists.

Johnny goes home, much later than he’d realized, and finds V curled up in bed, two garment bags slung across the back of the couch. He curls up around her, feeling something – doubt, maybe – dislodge itself from behind his ribs as he drifts to sleep.

Johnny’s mouth is dry. V’s face flushes bright red.

They take each other in, V having emerged from the bathroom in her dress, staring at Johnny clad in his own formalwear. Separately, they curse Kerry – he’s done this on purpose. V’s dress is a deep, bloody crimson, a collar wrapping around her neck and a belt around her waist, little more than strips of fabric connecting the two. They barely cover her chest, leaving a wide V that exposes the valley in between her breasts.The skirt falls to the floor, but there are deep cutouts, exposing her hipbones on either side, and a long slit up her right leg that makes Johnny feel sinful for wanting to peel back. His own shirt is a dark grey, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to flaunt the silver of his arm, and he leaves the top buttons undone, exposing a bit of his chest. He’s wearing what V can only describe as a harness, though it’s intricately beaded with small crystals and it wraps around his shoulders, accentuating his waistline that disappears into his slacks.

They make a stunning pair, but all they can do is gaze, a ravenous look in both sets of eyes as they stare at each other.

V is the one that breaks their reverie first. “It’s starting soon,” she tells him, as she gathers the miniature pistol she’s opted to let Johnny carry, since her dress leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination and therefore no room for a holster.

“Let’s get going then, kitten,” he smirks, tilting his head back and looking down his nose at her. If he’s gonna play her huscle, he’s going to do it well. Besides, this is Johnny Silverhand’s official reunion tour, and he’s gotta look good coming back from the dead.

She glares at him, but throws his suit jacket over her dress – _“no fuckin way I’m coverin’ up this arm, darlin’,”_ he’d said – and calls the Excelsior to take them to the Peralezes’ building.

She briefs him fully in the car on the way over, explaining their plan. This is strictly recon; they are to barely interact with the other guests if possible, instead sticking to the outer edges of the room and watching for any suspicious behavior. Jefferson Peralez has sent them a list of people he deems suspicious; it’s long, but a quick scan should be able to discard many of the names, as he’s spied on his wife, Elizabeth, and found that she’s expecting a transmitter shard to be delivered by one of the guests under cover of the party. Their primary goal is to observe the exchange, but it would be helpful to follow the target and possibly receive a location for the perpetrator’s base of operations.

Johnny leans back in his seat, raising an eyebrow at his merc as he procures a cigarette from somewhere and lights up. “Good for Pinocchio – he’s managed to put together this whole thing while having his brain scrambled. Too bad he’s nothing but a goddamn proxy. This city never changes.”

“Oh really? Was there an abundance of skull sponge altering AI back in your day?” V snarks, growing annoyed with his constant ragging on the political state of Night City. If she looks a little deeper, her irritability is probably due to her physical state of arousal, brought on my the man sitting next to her – so she doesn’t look.

“No need – people let themselves be controlled the old fashioned way,” he says in a low tone, signaling the end of the argument. V sighs.

“You know, people are going to recognize you.”

“It’s what I’m counting on.”

“Everyone’s gonna know you’re back from the dead. They’re going to wanna talk.”

He settles his gaze on her, lifts his cigarette from his mouth so she can read his lips, loud and clear. “Let them. The only voice I need to hear belongs to the woman sitting in this car.” V goes silent at that, unsure of how to respond beyond a dreamy sigh, and that would be too embarrassing for even her to bear.

They pull up outside the Peralezes’ complex, V steeling herself for what’s about to go on inside. She hates being the center of attention, chose merc life for that exact reason; sticking to the shadows, remaining undetected. That is her forte. Johnny is her foil in that aspect. He loves attention, gloats in it – though, as she observes the tight line of his shoulders as they exit the elevator onto the penthouse floor, she wonders if that is still the case.

The gala is a classy, modest affair; the guests are less so, and she finds that she and Johnny are not the only ones dressed to impress. It becomes obvious as she strides through the gaggles of people that this is the intent. They want to make the guests feel large, important, so they open their wallets and donate out of pride. It disgusts her, watching corpo and government dealings take place before her eyes while down on the streets Night City is starving and killing each other for the scraps these people leave behind. She steels herself, putting a pin in those thoughts for later; this is not the time for righteous anger, and she has a job to do.

Johnny stays as close behind her as the trailing of her dress will allow, attempting to keep his eyes on her back, her shoulders – anywhere but the exposed skin of her sharp hipbones, disappearing into the folds of her dress, or her ass, softly swaying from side to side as the red fabric ghosts over it. He feels eyes on him and forces himself to look into the crowd. He can sense the curious stares, sees a couple mouths drop open, can almost read their thoughts: _Johnny Silverhand? Couldn’t be. A synth, maybe?_ He smirks with pride, feeling a bit more like his old self as he glides behind V, who moves confidently through the house to locate Jefferson.

She finds him in the main hallway, behind the locked glass doors that she opens effortlessly thanks to her technical ability. There is something off about him – or, maybe on, she thinks, considering that she’s only met him under circumstances where he was being muted by mind control. He seems less put together than usual, his tie undone and a beer in his hand as he paces, muttering to himself.

“Jefferson,” she calls, and when his eyes land on her he glances at her for a split second before looking away, then looking back again with vested interest. It’s the most hilarious double take she’s ever seen. Johnny finds it less so. 

“V,” he greets, forcing a charming smile onto his face as his eyes roam over her form. Johnny’s fist clenches by his side when Jefferson’s gaze pauses momentarily at her hips. “You look fantastic.”

“Thanks,” she smiles. “You look nervous.”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he assures her, and he sounds honest. “Who’s your companion?” The tightening of his smile reveals that he knows exactly who the rockerboy is, and it piques Johnny’s apprehension.

“Johnny Silverhand,” he speaks up from his position, leaned against the wall.

“Nice to meet you,” Jefferson responds, the tone of his voice indicating the opposite.

V can feel the testosterone rolling off both of them in waves, and she redirects their attention. “Don’t see a lot of security outside those doors.”

“We went for a fully automatic approach,” Peralez explains, as he leads them both to the security room. He gives V the entire rundown; cameras, drones, and a single turret at the elevator.

“It’s still a bit bare,” V comments, leaning over to take a look at the computer.

“We wanted to create the illusion of safety,” he defends. “Besides, I’m confident that any issues will be dealt with swiftly and severely,” he winks at her.

“Didn’t agree to be your huscle, Peralez,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Not huscle,” he assures her, with the practiced smoothness of a politician. He steps over to V, places his hand in between her shoulder blades. Johnny tenses. “Backup, if needed. And hopefully, it won’t be needed.”

“Let’s hope it won’t,” she says, her voice going cold.

Jefferson removes his hand from her back, wooden smile stiffening. “I’m slated to speak in an hour – that’s when the trade is expected to take place. You’re welcome to mingle or scan the guests from here, your choice.” Johnny can see the gears turning in his head. “You’re welcome to come find me when you’re finished,” he adds suggestively.

As he steps toward the exit, Johnny decides to speak up, loud enough to be heard clearly from across the room. “Poor neutered fuck, can barely string together an original thought. Bet he can’t even work his own meat.”

Peralez freezes at the door, his back turned on them. V rounds on Johnny, smacking a hand hard against his shoulder.

“You do realize everyone in this room can hear you, now!”

“I said it for his benefit, not yours, _sweetheart_.” His tone drips with acid and Jefferson turns, considering letting him know what he can do for his _benefit_. But he sees something cold, something possessive in Johnny’s eyes and decides to back off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you two were involved. Let me know what you find, V.”

Jefferson exits the room and V turns back to the desk, fuming. She jacks into the security computer, activating her Kiroshis and commencing the tedious task of scanning each guest, cross checking them with the list Jefferson has given her and pointedly ignoring Johnny beside her.

She gets through half of the list before Johnny speaks up. “V.” She checks a few more names off, finding nothing on them but inconsequential, low-caliber firearms. “V.” She lands on the last name, finding a briefcase registered to him stowed in the coat closet. “V!”

“What, Johnny? What do you have to say for yourself right now?” she asks him, the volume of her voice rising with every word. “I can’t believe you!”

“You can’t believe me? He was acting like a bitch in heat, thinking with his tiny dick.” He palms his pocket for his case of cigarettes, throwing his hand up in frustration when he remembers he left them in the car.

“You weren’t acting much better! Like a goddamn guard dog, except with none of the fucking bite.” She storms off, headed for the coat closet to investigate the briefcase. He follows her, as he always does, starting to regret his actions only when she ignores him further.

He rounds the corner, stepping into the coat closet, and she’s already opened the briefcase, a missing hole where the shard should be. “Fuck, he must have it on him already.” She stows the briefcase back under a table from where she procured it and moves for the exit, but Johnny stops her with a hand on her waist.

“I’m sorry,” he says lowly, ducking his head to look into her eyes.

She scoffs and turns her head. “Sure you are.”

He backs her up against the wall, the door automatically sliding shut behind them.

“I am.”

Suddenly they are close. So close. She can feel his breath tickling her cheek as he crowds her against the wall. His eyes soften, looking down at their bodies that are pressed flush against each other. “Don’t wanna argue,” he says.

“Then don’t.”

An invitation. A lifeline. They stand on the edge of something — she’s not sure what, but she desires desperately to push them both. He stares into her eyes, searching for the same something.

He decides he’s found it. He surges forward, pressing his lips against hers insistently. She responds instantly, bringing her hands up to card through his hair. He kisses her with his whole body, running his hands up and down her exposed sides, rolling his hips against hers. She groans, whispers his name like a revelation.

The kiss grows more heated, Johnny’s mouth trailing from her lips to her neck to the slit in between her breasts, thanking his lucky stars that Kerry chose this dress; it provides excellent access points. He shoves the fabric aside, taking one of her nipples, already erect, between his lips. She groans and arches her back, begging him to take more of her tits into his mouth. He complies, flicking his tongue over her nipple, relishing in her sharp intake of breath as he does. He has waited so long, and there is no patience in the way he takes her apart, deliberately and thoroughly.

She feels his hand trail downwards from her hip, finding its way into the slit in her dress. “Johnny,” she whines, eliciting a moan from him.

“You gotta stop saying my name like that, kitten.”

She whimpers _“Johnny”_ again in defiance and is rewarded with a sharp bite to her nipple. It just makes her want him more, makes her keening louder, and his hand finds its way into the waistband of her lace underwear.

He teases at the entrance to her cunt for a moment, nearly losing his grip as he feels how fucking wet she is already; he feels a swell of pride when she pushes her hips forward into his hand, the knowledge that he and he alone can do this to her. There was none of this keening, none of this whining, when she fucked River. Not even when she fucks herself.

“What do you want, babe? God, such a wet little whore for me.”

“Fuck you, Johnny,” she tries to say, but it comes out without bite as the end of her sentence transforms into a loud moan; he’s found her clit and is circling it with the index finger on his left hand, the cool metal against the warmth of her cunt creating a change in sensation that makes her see stars.

“Oh, I’m planning on it,” he says, eyes darkening. “Got a couple things to take care of, first.”

His mouth continues its trail down her body, tongue dipping briefly into her navel and making her shudder before he falls to his knees. She opens her eyes, then, looking down at him with a wide gaze. “Told you I loved eating pussy, didn't I, kitten?”

She watches him with hungry eyes as he opens the fabric of her dress like a curtain, burying his face into her thighs. He inhales deeply, the scent of sex intoxicating him, and reaches up to delicately pull her panties to her ankles.

V inhales at the cold rush of air, but it’s soon covered with his tongue, warm and wide and wet as he licks at her cunt, precise and sloppy. He moans underneath her, grabs her hips and steers her to lean against a shelf. “Up,” he commands, and she barely has time to comply before he resumes eating her out, making her throw her head back and yell. It’s slick, with his saliva and her own wetness, and his tongue glides up easily in practiced motions. She has to restrain herself from bucking her hips to fuck his face when he wraps his lips around her clit and sucks, hard enough that all the air leaves her body and she’s yanking at his hair, dragging him impossibly closer.

She’s close, she realizes, but doesn’t want to come like this; she wants to come with him looking into her eyes, so he can see her, understand that she truly belongs to him. She fists his shirt collar and drags him up, nimble fingers undoing the buttons on his shirt in record time. She attaches her lips to his neck, sucking small bruises into the skin there, then biting him as he wraps his hand around her throat and squeezes.

“Fuck, Johnny,” she moans at the sudden lack of air, the commanding way he’s holding her. “Get inside me, please. Please.”

He has no choice, not when she says his name in that reverential way; not when she _begs_.

“This what you wanted?” he says, relishing in her sharp inhale as he lines up his cock and slides into her. “You wanted me inside you, kitten? Huh baby girl?” Her nails dig painfully into his lower back as she pulls, claws at his waist, trying to drag him closer. He feels pinpricks across his back and knows there will be angry, raised marks there. It drives him crazy; he thrusts harder. The shelf creaks under their combined weight, but neither of them care.

She throws her head back and hangs onto him as he pulls out and slides back in again, the sensation of being filled by him more satisfying, more overwhelming, than anything she’s ever felt in her life. She’s vaguely aware that she’s _loud_ , muffled moans that no one would mistake for words escaping her throat as he fucks her, but she’s wanted this for so long she can’t bring herself to be ashamed of it, ashamed of the _yes_ and _fuck_ and _daddy_ spilling from her lips.

He wasn’t lying, all those months ago; his cock is impressive, but what he does with it is even more so. He knows her angles, wraps an arm around her waist to lift her hips in time with his thrusts so he can hit that spot inside her cunt that has her tightening and shaking around him.

She pulls him close by the collar and bruises their lips together, letting her hands wander up to fist in his hair as she whines into his mouth. She tastes herself on him, acidic and bitter, and shoves her tongue inside his mouth to savor the taste. He moans right back, their tongues intermingling, and reaches down with his left hand to grasp her thigh, lifting and pushing it back.

The fabric covering V’s hip stops him. “Fucking dress,” he mutters, and curls his fingers around the seam. There’s a ripping sound and suddenly there’s fabric on the ground, her leg being slung up over Johnny’s left shoulder. His thrusts become less rhythmic, more frantic, and she knows he’s close. She clenches her cunt, making it even tighter for him, and it causes them both to yell, Johnny cursing, “Fuck, love your pussy, baby girl.”

“You gonna come for me, daddy?” she asks in the sweetest, filthiest voice she can manage while sounding this breathless. Johnny’s hips stutter but he maintains his composure, wrapping his hand around her throat and using it as leverage to steady himself as he rolls his hips. He pulls her close, brushing his lips against hers, slowing down momentarily.

“You first, kitten,” he whispers, and releases her. She watches with wide eyes as he puts his own thumb into his mouth, dragging it out obscenely slowly. The metal hand glistening with his spit makes its way down to her cunt, and he drags it over her clit, resuming the movement of his hips.

She screams, then at the pressure on her clit, but both of them are too far gone; the outside world, anything other than the six inches of space between their bodies, has ceased to exist. Johnny rubs her clit in rhythm with his thrusts, and she finds herself letting go of his hair to claw at his shoulders, his neck, anywhere her hands can reach.

“Come here,” she begs in between sobs. “Please, Johnny, kiss me, _please_ ,” and he does, folds her damn near in half to mold his mouth to hers, pounds into her like his life depends on it, on how well he fucks her. She feels herself coming undone, something inside her tightening and unraveling. He thinks he will never feel this good again.

“Fuck, _love_ you,” he groans against her mouth, and he doesn’t even have time to process what just escaped the deepest recesses of his psyche, what it _means_ , before her back arches so far it looks painful. Her tits bounce, having been liberated from the revealing slit in the front of her dress, slick with spit and come and sweat. She’s practically riding him, now, supported only by the curve of his arm around her back. It shouldn’t be possible to feel this close to him. They don’t share a body anymore, their psyches are two separate entities – so why does she still feel like he’s going to swallow her whole?

Her orgasm doesn’t rush over her quickly the way she’s used to; she stands on the precipice of the cliff for what feels like hours, before Johnny’s admission pushes her over the edge. She falls into white noise, her own moans and Johnny’s getting mixed up in her head. He follows directly after, her cunt clenching around his cock as he thrusts, spilling into her with groans of praise in her ear.

They kiss slowly for a few more moments before he pulls out, resting his forehead against hers. Neither of them speak, too wrapped up in the energy passing between them both.

V looks down at the ripped mess of her dress, giggling. “Fuck you, Silverhand,” she says, sounding breathy and blissed out. She hops down, wobbling for a moment on her feet before she adjusts, ripping the fabric the rest of the way so the dress stops at her mid-thigh. Johnny busies himself with tucking his cock back into his slacks, redoing the buttons on his shirt. V takes him by surprise, sliding a hand around to the back of his neck and pulling him down into a kiss. It’s almost chaste, a _thank you_ , a promise for later.

Distantly, they hear Night City’s theme playing; Peralez is about to start his speech. V loops her fingers through Johnny’s and drags him along, through the hallway and back out towards the terrace.


	3. The Blinding Panic; The Love

V’s made a lot of deals in her life.

The first was the deal she made with her parents when she was too young to even make her own decisions, implied and unspoken as they swallowed RPM by double and triple doses and injected themselves with too much blue glass to keep track of. She’d left, and in exchange for her freedom, they’d let her go. Ever since then, she’d been alone, on the streets.

Her life changed when she made the deal with Jackie, their decision to become friends so much more important than whatever fixer or corp was out to screw them over. Finally she had a partner, someone to watch her back while she ran jobs and became one of Night City’s most practiced mercs. But then she’d lost him, too, so short of their goal, and that loss rippled through her.

Then there was Johnny, and the deal he’d made to save her life. And they’d both fucked that one up, somehow getting their lives tangled together in an inextricable mess that left her lightheaded if she thought about it too long. But he seemed to take it in stride, never faltering in his promise to be by her side.

Except for right fucking now.

V’s got Elizabeth Peralez in her Kiroshis’ zoom, watching as she smokes a cigarette at the edge of the roof. Johnny, for all his grumbling in the comms device she stuck in his ear before they separated, is positioned at the other side of the terrace, revolver in hand. She can’t see him, and she’d rather not think about how that fact makes her hands shake, just slightly.

A figure climbs up from the security ladder, emerging from the trapdoor onto the roof. Their long, black coat barely stretches across their wide shoulders. It’s windy, their dark hair blowing around their face, and her eye optics can’t get a good read on them. Instead, she shifts her focus to Elizabeth. The first lady tosses her cigarette off the roof and approaches the figure, hand outstretched, all business. A stab of disgust rolls through V as she recalls the voicemail she discovered from Jefferson after returning from Mikoshi – _Elizabeth is in on it_. The first lady’s frantic pledge that she was just after his protection, and the juxtaposition with the absolute betrayal of this meeting; V has now felt the all-consuming need to protect, and could not even imagine doing such a thing to Johnny.

The figure and Elizabeth chat for a moment, and finally the wind dies down just enough for the scan to go through. The name flickers briefly across her optics – Arx Saccharum – before it glitches, sending a quick shock to her implants. She flinches, barely stopping herself from crying out. Adding insult, it brings out the worst in her Relic injuries, causing her lungs to empty themselves as she hunches in on herself and releases the scan.

Johnny is in her ear instantly, having heard her sharp intake of breath. “V!” he says in a rough whisper. She doesn’t respond instantly and he curses over their communications line. “Swear to god if you don’t fuckin’ answer me–“  
“‘M fine, Johnny,” she groans quietly. “Spiked, I think. Got some intel off of ‘em first, nothing but a name.”

Johnny doesn’t answer. There’s a crackle of static in her ear, followed by Johnny whispering, “Fuck.” She looks up and Arx is advancing slowly towards his position, unholstering a sawed-off shotgun. He’s been made. The wind picks up once again, enough to tousle even V’s short hair. Elizabeth moves slowly behind a power bank, prepared to duck if necessary.

V thinks fast, grabbing a discarded maintenance tool and hurling it in Arx’s direction. It stops just short of hitting their assailant, landing behind them on the ground instead. They turn, and it gives her the reprieve needed; she emerges from her hiding place and sprints across the roof towards them at lightning speed.

She’s entirely too far to make contact with them before they manage to put a bullet through her skull, and their arm comes up with the intent to do so. But Johnny is faster, appearing somehow to lunge at them, knocking the shotgun from their hand with a swift kick to the ribs that sends them sprawling. Noticing they’re outnumbered, Arx moves to crawl towards the trapdoor, but Johnny stops them with the heel of his boot, placed carefully on the back of their neck.

“Not so fuckin’ fast.”

“Don’t move,” a voice carries, distorted by the wind. Elizabeth holds a pistol, arms fully outstretched towards Johnny, finger on the trigger. “Don’t move,” she repeats. Her hands shake slightly, but the look on her face V recognizes as hard determination. She will shoot, if V can’t find an alternative. Her eyes fly between Elizabeth and Johnny and Arx in a panic; she even chances a quick scan at Elizabeth, but there’s nothing to bounce off of to distract her, no quickhack to perform. She guesses Arx carries a jammer on them.

Johnny slowly removes his foot from the contact’s neck, keeping his eyes on Elizabeth. Arx scrambles away and down the trapdoor as Johnny turns to face the first lady, movements slow and heavy. “C’mon, prima donna,” he says, casual. “Don’t wanna do that.”

“What makes you so sure?” Elizabeth says, rolling her shoulders in anticipation of the kickback. She makes one mistake, lets her elbow joints fall as she locks her arms in her aim. V seethes silently, calculating distances in her head as they stare each other down. Johnny’s eyes cut to her, the wild, reckless look on her face. He gives her an imperceptible shake of his head – she curses at how he knows her so well – and she ignores him.

Without warning, V lunges the last few feet towards Elizabeth, activating her leg implants as her feet push off the ground to jump not high but far, so that the first lady cannot possibly move fast enough to shift her aim without dislocating a shoulder. She lands on top of her, knees against her chest, and their combined weight slamming to the ground knocks the wind out of both of them. The gun goes clattering off the edge of the roof, landing on the terrace somewhere below. V rears back and lands a solid, delightfully painful punch directly to Elizabeth’s jaw before arms drag her up and away. The cry she gets in reward is so sweet that she kicks at the air, swearing.

“Let me go, Johnny!”

He sets her down behind him, keeping a hand on her waist as he pushes her back and turns to look at Elizabeth, writhing on the ground. He strides over to her, fists clenched, and hauls her up by the collar of her dress. There’s a bruise blossoming on the left side of her face and V smirks in vindication as she watches Johnny.

Elizabeth breathes heavily, glaring daggers at him. He just shoves her against a power bank, forcing her to lean back so he can tower over her. “Where did that fuckin’ lowlife come from?”

The first lady coughs. “I don’t know – what you’re talking about.”  
Johnny pulls her close and slams her back against the power bank, not hard enough to break her spine, but hard enough to bruise. She lets out a small yelp but her face stays indignant all the same. He reaches into the pocket of her dress and removes the control shard, holding it up in front of her face. “My fault, your highness. Didn’t realize you had short term memory loss.” He grips her by the upper shoulders, pulling her to stand upright and releasing her like he’s going to let her go. Instead, he steps aside and tilts his head at V, allowing her to step in.

Rather than say anything, V brings her hand up fast and hard and lands a backhand across Elizabeth’s face. The first lady’s head snaps to the side and there are stinging tears in her eyes when she turns back, her hair mussed with strands laid across her face, red from the impact. “Asked you a question.”

“And once I tell you?” Her voice is laced with vitriol.

V takes a small step towards her, fisting both hands in her lapel. The wind picks up once more, and V backs Elizabeth up to the edge of the roof. “You pulled iron on my output. Should be more concerned about what happens if you don’t.”

“Is this little display meant to insinuate you’re going to throw me off the roof?” She laughs cruelly, but it’s lost among the wind and the heaving of her chest. V makes direct eye contact, a challenge, and sees nothing but fear there. “My husband won’t forgive you.”

V tilts her head, gives Elizabeth a tight, toothless smile. “You say that like I need his forgiveness.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widen as she realizes the exact thinness of the line she’s toeing. Her next words come out of her in a rush, stumbling over each other as she tries to speak quickly enough to save her own life. “I only know where I meet them! There’s no address, no marker–”

“Not good enough,” Johnny interjects. Elizabeth’s frantic eyes fly to him and back to V. She extends her arm, throwing Elizabeth’s balance off that much more, V’s grip on her collar the only thing preventing her from a painful, bone-crunching death.

“It’s abandoned. Across from the Red Queen’s Race.”

“Better,” V says lowly, and releases her.

She doesn’t stick around to watch Elizabeth’s distraught face as she stumbles at the edge, turning her back as the first lady falls, her arms flying out to them for help. V’s hand twitches minutely, some pure, protective instinct flaring up in her before she steels herself. Johnny just stares at her and follows. There’s a thud below and then a hush falls over the entire building for just a moment before a panicked chatter picks up.

They don’t stop to watch the carnage; they are above hanging around the edges of the crowd that has gathered around Elizabeth’s lifeless body. Jefferson stands frozen at the podium, his face a perfect display of shock. He catches a glimpse of V as she and Johnny glide across the terrace to the elevator. She feels her stomach drop for a split second before she searches his face; there is alarm there, terror, but no grief – no anger. The guilt dislodges itself from her core; it seems Elizabeth has out-conned even his love.

Johnny says nothing to her until they are back out on the street. He searches her face as they walk to the Excelsior, words rattling around in his mouth until he settles on something that won’t entirely piss her off.

“Info really worth killing her?” They slide into the car and Johnny gratefully palms his pack of cigarettes, immediately pulling one out and lighting it before sliding the box into his pocket.

“You rather I let her kill you?” she shoots back.

“Fuck,” he says, dragging out the word as he exhales hard, smoke curling around their faces. “Broad wasn’t in a position to do much, V.”

She pauses, voice so hushed it’s hard to hear over the low hum of the cab’s engine. “Couldn’t let her live, after that.” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but Johnny hears what she doesn’t say. _After threatening you._

He goes quiet, looking out the window as he smokes, but he lets his hands gravitate towards her all the same. He wraps his hand around her wrist and pulls, and she turns, draping her bare legs across his lap. He doesn’t kiss her at first, watching the city go by out the window above her head as he strokes her leg with his left hand and holds her face with his right. She relishes in the intimacy of it, the automatic way he touches her, as if he was made to do it. It’s not long before her mouth is fitted over his, their tongues moving lazily against each other as he leans over her. She slips her hands under his shirt and runs her fingernails over his abdomen, loving the way he shudders under her touch.

Too soon, Excelsior announces that they have arrived at the Red Queen’s Race. “Why is it always here with these political types,” Johnny grumbles, unwilling to release her. She wriggles away from his grasp and out into the evening, the wind biting and cool. She reaches into the trunk and grasps at the straps of her katana sheath, strapping it around her back and across her chest. She looks like a dream, standing there illuminated by the fading sun, a weapon against all that exposed skin, and Johnny has to fight the urge to get on his knees for her right there in the street.

The heat in his gaze gives him away, and he curses inwardly at how well she knows him after all this time spent as a passenger inside her body. Even in his own skin, she can read him like a book; she tilts her head and gives him a disapproving look before turning her back on him and approaching the warehouse.

The area that Elizabeth directed them to is devoid of people, not abandoned through neglect but deserted, out of purpose. V scans the environment around them and, finding nothing, walks into the warehouse. Johnny moves in front of her to investigate, shoulders wide and step light, and she’s reminded of the Militech job, of their kiss. It’s been less than a week, but it feels like it happened a lifetime ago. She was sure she’d risk her life for the man in front of her, but now she’d _die_ for him, no hesitation.

She feels it about to happen before it does, intuition perking her ears up like static electricity tangible in the air. She looks at Johnny, and opens her mouth to call out to him. Before she has the chance, an alarm sounds from somewhere in the distance. A sheet of metal that must be a half-foot thick, with little rectangular windows much too high for her to see through, separates her and Johnny. A blast door.

The echo is deafening, exacerbating her panic; her katana is unsheathed in seconds. She pounds on the door with her free hand, but all she can hear is her own frantic yelling of Johnny’s name. She even slices at the windows futilely, finding that her sword simply bounces off the reflective surface. She refuses to give up, even leaving and circling the building, examining it twice over in scan mode. But the warehouse is a stronghold — there is no other way in or out.

On the other side, Johnny’s reaction is much of the same. He tries feeling his way around, but the lack of light dulls his senses. He tries through his own rising panic to call out to V, but his own voice only echoes back at him as he hears her pounding at the metal door. The sound goes on for a few moments, then it stops, and he’s alone.

His chest heaves, his vision trying and failing to adjust to the dark. He sees spots and rubs at his eyes, but when he opens them everything is just as black as before. He tries to inhale, finding his breaths coming more and more shallow. He is dying—no, he is drowning, lungs filled with water and rejecting air, and he braces one arm against the door as his shoulders hunch forward.

Johnny Silverhand fears nothing. Famed rockerboy that he is, he has no weaknesses, no Achilles’ heel – or at least, he tries to convince himself of this as his back slides down the blast door. His elbows come to rest on his knees as his shoulders hunch forward and he buries his face into his hands. “Get it the _fuck_ together, Silverhand,” he whispers to himself, voice coming out unsteady. If he covers his eyes, blocks out the ringing in his ears, manages to breathe, his mind won’t take him back – he won’t be a helpless teenager trapped in the fire that killed his father or a soldier watching his friends explode on a godforsaken battlefield in Central America or a starving and manic wounded veteran barely preserving his life at the Pistis Sophia hotel or a forgotten soul drifting for fifty years like a lost boat in the calm ocean of Mikoshi—

A floodlight hits him, and he opens his eyes.

The sudden light blinds him, burning his retinas, and he squints and blinks against it. There is a figure there, standing in front of what looks to be an old projector and a blank wall. Johnny stands and draws his gun, moving out of the direct path of the floodlight.

The figure is familiar, somehow, and Johnny realizes it’s because he’s seen them before. A long, black coat stretched across wide shoulders. Dark hair that shields the figure’s face from view. Johnny opens his mouth to speak, but they beat him to it.

“I am Arx Saccharum,” they say, in a chillingly monotone voice. “You are Johnny Silverhand.”

“Damn right,” Johnny interjects. “What the fuck do you want? Where is V?” He forces clarity, intimidation, out of his voice, though his hand still shakes minutely from the terror of the dark.

“We have been instructed that she is not to be harmed, Johnny Silverhand. They simply needed you, alone.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“Arx Supreme,” they say simply. “Our maker.”

Johnny stays quiet, pieces clicking together in his head. Arx allows him to think. “You’re a proxy.”

“Saccharum. Latin. Derivative of the Greek, _saccharon_. Derivative of the Sanskrit, _sarkara_. Gravel, grit, pebble. We are but a pebble. They are the stone. The… boulder.”

“The fuck does your _maker_ want from me?” he spits.

“Your brain,” Arx says, and Johnny tenses. “Arasaka primed you to be a soldier. Inserted pathways that would allow them to alter your… behavior. The Supreme wants said pathways.”

“What,” Johnny says, low and dangerous, “makes you think I would agree to that?”

“The Supreme can save your partner.” Johnny straightens; his eyes widen.

“Fuckin’ liar.”

“We have no reason to lie.”

“Prove it.” The projector comes to life, then, displaying brain scans on the wall opposite them.

Arx begins to explain the alteration process. “The Supreme has interest in the activities of prominent Night City figureheads. These brain scans are reminiscent of others taken by us; we believe that you have seen them.” Johnny nods, recalling the data V had tried to pull from the van while investigating for the Peralezes. They had tapped into it, and then it had disappeared without a trace. That data had been collected by satellite, without the knowledge of Arx’s test subjects, while they slept in their beds. Their very brain chemistry had been altered to push the agenda of this AI; Johnny feels sick.

As if the proxy can sense his unease, they try to reassure Johnny. “These scans were not taken without consent. They were procured from the ripperdoc Viktor Vektor, under false pretenses. No alterations have been made at this point in time.”

“What, you readin’ my fuckin’ mind now?”

“The Supreme has interest in you,” Arx says in lieu of response, which is an answer in itself. The projector flickers to the next slide. “This render shows how the subject’s brain will appear after our proposed alteration. The Supreme understands that you will go to great lengths to heal V-“

“It’s V,” he interrupts. “Just V.” He won’t let a manipulative AI have the intimacy of V’s full name.

“The Supreme offers you a deal. They will alter V’s brain chemistry so that she may live inside her body, if you will agree to lend your pathways to their cause.”

Johnny considers the offer. “You need the relic blueprints to do this?”

“We have the blueprints.”

“Hellman—“

“Anders Hellman is unnecessary for this operation.” Johnny hesitates again, and the proxy seems to grow impatient. “If you want to save her life, this is your sole option. There is no other science on Earth that can replicate what the Supreme has achieved.”

Johnny averts his gaze, gears turning in his mind. He considers V, the way she let Elizabeth tumble off the roof without hesitation, retribution for threatening his life. He comes to a decision. “What do you need me to do.”

V stands against the far wall, scanning the blast door. She notes weak points in it, wonders if it will be enough to plant explosives near it and see if the detonation can bring it down.

Without warning, it shudders, and she readies her katana. The door comes up much more slowly than it had slammed down, and Johnny ducks underneath it. His eyes look tired, bloodshot, but he’s in one piece.

She returns her sword to its sheath and rushes at him, eyes flying over his face, his arms, his chest where his shirt remains unbuttoned. Her hands caress and stroke softly as she checks him over. “Are you alright? What happened?” He doesn’t speak, won’t meet her eyes, so she grasps his hand, leading him out of the stronghold and into the night. “Johnny.”

He looks at her, irises wide from adjusting to the light, and it’s as if he looks right through her. Suddenly his mouth is on hers hard enough to bruise, arms encircling her as his fingers dig into her waist, clutching desperately. She kisses him back in earnest before pulling back and looking him over once more. She wonders what could have happened in less than a half hour to unnerve him like this, to send him back into her arms trembling as if he’s seen a ghost.

He knows his eyes are vacant; the urge to consume substances, to go numb, rushes through him, the haze of addiction clouding his brain. But he looks down at V and sees the concern in her eyes, deciding that he’ll push it away for tonight. He goes home with her and lets her care for him. She peels him out of his clothes and stands in the shower with him, reaching up to push his wet hair out of his eyes as he slowly comes back to himself. He groans when she scratches at his scalp with long fingernails, pressing feather-light kisses to his chest, his shoulders, the seam where his flesh arm meets his cybernetic. When they’ve had enough, she wraps him in warm towels and pulls him to the bed, lighting candles before she turns out the lights. He can’t help but think of how this gesture, above everything else, demonstrates just how much of him is inside her, how even his unspoken reactions spark her subconscious responses. It goes both ways; his first instinct is not to run, not to lash out, but to let her in, dissolve the barrier between flesh and psyche and give her the vulnerability she’s asking for.

He resolves not to tell her what Arx is planning; it’s safer if she doesn’t know, and easier if she can’t talk him out of it. He simply hopes she’ll forgive him, when all is said and done, when he’s nothing but a machine for someone else’s use. It’s not a welcome thought, his loss of autonomy, but it’s an old formula he has become intimately acquainted with.

They fuck _everywhere_. V needs him, devours him like a woman starved on every surface in the apartment. They christen all of her cars. They fuck once in an alley, rough brick against V’s back as Johnny shoves her up against the wall. Anyone could walk by, but that just makes it hotter, makes her desperate to chase her release faster. And Johnny is more than happy to provide, using his fingers, tongue, cock, toys, whatever will get her off, get her begging. She always comes first, except on the occasions when she blows him; afterward, he sees how long they can go, tries to make her come thrice. She says his name in varied tones; awed, when he kneels before her, shouts it, right before her pupils dilate and her back arches.

But this is his favorite, when she’s clenched tight around him, pleading for him to stop as he tortures her, overstimulates her. They’ve been fucking for hours, now, on their fourth round and he’s got no intentions of stopping. He can feel his come inside her, hot and wet and slippery, and he _loves_ her, loves the way he can feel her close in tight around him when her orgasm’s about to hit, clenching and pulsing over and over again until she’s absolutely spent.

V has never in her life been needy like this. She’s never had sex this good, raw and passionate as Johnny makes her feel. Even on jobs all she can think about is his face, his smile, the way he plucks at his guitar strings, bobbing his head when he thinks she’s not looking.

They run jobs together and, though she’s thankful to have a partner again, it feels more dangerous than it ever has. Johnny’s shoulder gets clipped by a Maelstrom bullet, once, and she realizes why through a haze of panic. It’s like having her soul outside her body, she thinks, walking and talking and getting fucking shot.

The idea bounces around in her skull for a couple days, threatens to spill out of her lips every time he fucks her, touches her, looks at her. And it finally does, one lazy morning when they’re doing absolutely nothing, Johnny plucking at his guitar and humming, bobbing his head like always. She gazes at him, watches him for a moment, and is suddenly struck by the overwhelming urge to tell him.

“Johnny,” she calls.

He slides his hand down the neck of the guitar, looks up at her expectantly. The bandage on his shoulder reminds her of that moment, the blinding panic; the love.

“I think...” she trails off, having lost confidence. “I think you’re my soul,” she says quietly.

He hmms, noncommittal, and looks back down at his guitar. But she catches his smile, widening by the second, the biggest one she’s ever seen on his face.

Johnny enters the stronghold warily, V’s words echoing in his mind. _My soul_. He can’t leave her, not after everything, not after _that_. Anger flares up in him, at V, at Arx, at himself for agreeing to this in the first place.

The proxy stands in the middle of the room, near the wall where the projector had been last time he was here. They are completely stationary; beyond the door closing behind him, his presence does not appear noticed. He steels himself for the activation of the blast door, the subsequent darkness, but it doesn’t come.

“Arx,” he calls as he approaches. “I’ve come to rescind.”

At this, the proxy’s head snaps up. “Rescind?” He freezes. It is the first question he has heard the proxy ask. There is a pause before they speak again. “The Supreme is disappointed in you, Johnny Silverhand.” Their voice sounds different, sounds colder. It reminds him of the difference between the living, breathing Alt and whatever AI has taken up residence in her digital form.

“Fuckin’ _disappointed_? Tell it to find some other yes-man. Not gonna go through with this.”

Suddenly, two sets of arms pin his behind his back. He thrashes, catching only glimpses of his attackers. They wear the same coat, have the same characteristic dark hair. His cybernetic arm struggles; the cold, cobbled-together-in-wartime metal has always been stronger than the average limb, but even it is beyond the level of strength he’d need to escape the AI’s grasp.

“I am sorry,” the proxy says, tilting their head.

“‘I?’ What happened to ‘we’?” The hair finally falls from across their face, revealing sunken obsidian black eyes, a cold, corpse-like complexion. Johnny is horrified as he realizes the body Arx is inhabiting very well may be dead. Their face remains impassive, though, even as they apologize, and Johnny despises the incongruity.

“I cannot let you go once the deal has been made.”

“The fuck do you think I’m going to do for you?” he spits, struggling against his captors’ holds.

He feels one of their arms leave his bicep and thrashes, only to be met with a hard blow to the back of his head. His vision clouds with black spots and his eyes threaten to shut. As he goes limp, he hears Arx giving directions in hushed tones to its other proxies, likely over holo. They address him once more.

“Nothing, unless I force you to.” There is a moment of blind panic, and then he is slipping away.


End file.
